In my last post I promised that I’d discuss what we can do about the situation for women, not just locally but worldwide. In the meantime, the news of the day—the fallout from the Biden-Trump debate—screamed for attention. So this is an interruption of sorts, yet one deeply connected to the patriarchal engine we must dismantle.

The Best President?

I subscribe to several news sources, including my home town paper, the New York Times. Comments by Times readers are often as informative as the articles. For the last year or so, quite a few readers have written in to say that Joe Biden is the best president of their lifetime. And their comments have received many “likes”. My reaction was to wonder how old those Biden fans were. Perhaps they’d recently graduated from elementary school?

The fans, and the Times columnists, referred to Biden as nice, honest, decent, empathetic, and so on.

I think of the Biden who, as senator, passed legislation that favored the credit card companies and made it much harder for ordinary people to declare bankruptcy.  About the Senator Biden who aided the GOP in trashing Anita Hill and not allowing other women to testify about Clarence Thomas, thus paving the way for Thomas’s ascension to the Supreme Court.

More recently, looking at Biden as president, his administration does get credit for passing important environmental legislation, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. At the same time, however, it also approved fossil fuel expansion at a rate outpacing the Trump administration. As the Center for Biological Diversity says, “It supported Sen. Joe Manchin’s demands to add provisions to the Inflation Reduction Act that will lock in fossil fuel leasing for the next decade.” And it approved the Willow Project, allowing ConocoPhillips to extract massive amounts of oil in Alaska—what the company says could be 180,000 barrels per day—a “carbon bomb” that would negate any positive benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Why are so many otherwise intelligent people enamored of this man? Or they were enamored, until the June 27 debate showed him as in the early stages of dementia. Now at least half the readers’ comments call for him to step aside and let someone else run against Trump. Some readers even have the temerity to wonder who has actually been doing his job for the last two years.

Who Runs the Show?

For most of American history the wealthy have controlled the country. This has been true since slave owner George Washington was president and only white men of property could vote. The franchise has since been extended to the rest of us, but we peasants actually have very little power.

According to a 2014 study by Professors Gilen and Page, “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” What counts? Money.

“In the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support — earning a return of 750 times their investment… To win a Senate seat in 2014, candidates had to raise $14,351 every single day. Just .05% of Americans donate more than $10,000 in any election, so it’s perfectly clear who candidates will turn to first, and who they’re indebted to when they win. Our elected officials spend 30-70% of their time in office fundraising for the next election.”

When Biden was running for president in 2019, while he was promising us that he would turn things around after the disastrous Trump years, he was giving his rich donors a very different message. “No one’s standard of living will change,” he told them, “nothing would fundamentally change.” He went on to say that the rich should not be blamed for income inequality. “I need you very badly,” he pleaded.

Delusions at the Top

Clearly, our presidents and legislators are owned by the billionaires. As Robin Williams said, “They should be like NASCAR drivers. They should actually have to have jackets with the names of all the people who are sponsoring them.”

Nonetheless, they often let their titles, and the public deference that accompanies them, go to their heads. Since the air at higher altitudes can make one dizzy, a politician may even come to believe that he is really in charge. Biden said in a televised interview on July 5, “Not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.”

Or as Trump said, when accepting the GOP nomination in 2016, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

Some of them also seem to think they’re God’s anointed. In January Trump posted a video on his website that declared he was “God’s chosen emissary on earth, sent to deliver America back to prosperity.”

Delusions at the Bottom

You and I may deplore our leaders’ fantasy lives, but a large chunk of the population suffers from complementary delusions. Many Americans believe their president is actually running, if not the entire world, at least the so-called free world. This belief is inculcated, at least in part, by media and governmental propaganda. And many evangelical Christians are convinced that Trump is the new messiah.

I believe that the propaganda we’re given would fall on deaf ears except for a widespread, desperate desire for a Big Daddy. And that need for a Father God, kind and protective, for a benevolent king, president, or tsar, is one of the main pillars of patriarchy.

Huge numbers of the faithful also want their Big Daddy to be vicious towards “those people,” to beat up anyone who makes us uncomfortable. As one Trump supporter complained during his presidency, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

What Shall We Do?

This doesn’t mean we can throw up our hands and skip the election. Decades ago, before I was old enough to cast a ballot, my father told me, “Vote Democratic. The Republicans keep all the money for themselves, while the Democrats let the little people have a share.” Dad was born in 1912 and lived through the Great Depression. What was true then is just as true now.

But today’s choice is even more crucial. Just before the 2020 election, Trump posted on his Facebook page, “We are ONE movement, ONE people, ONE family, and ONE GLORIOUS NATION UNDER GOD!”  I’m not the only one reminded of the Nazi slogan “Ein volk, ein reich, ein Führer.” Or of Trump’s remarks praising Hitler and using Hitler’s rhetoric, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of America,” and calling his political enemies “vermin.”

Trump said he intends to be dictator on day one, but only on day one. Who ever heard of a dictator giving up power after one day, or even one year? They would rule from the grave if they could.

Vote for the much lesser of two evils this year. And then organize to make real changes in this country. We’ve done it before, and can do it again.

My Vote

So who was the best president of my lifetime? My vote goes to a person who didn’t have the official title but who often spoke and acted for the president and was responsible for many policy decisions. I met my candidate in either 1947 or 1948—I can’t remember the exact date, since I was in kindergarten when Eleanor Roosevelt visited our school.

For young readers who only vaguely remember the name Eleanor Roosevelt, here’s a very brief bio: She was married to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. After Franklin lost the use of his legs in 1921, Eleanor made many speeches and public appearances for him. She was the first president’s wife to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband’s policies. She supported civil rights and women’s rights, and served as a delegate to the United Nations.

Oh yes, and she was a lesbian.

According to Hazel Rowley, one of her biographers, Eleanor told her daughter that sex with her husband was an “ordeal to be borne.” Hundreds of letters between them also show that for decades she had a loving and almost certainly sexual relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote her nationally syndicated column, “My Day,” from 1935 to 1962. I read it faithfully every afternoon in the New York Post.